


Testing the Waters

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Series: The Way of the Apartment Manager [13]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Deleted Scenes, Gen, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Paranoia, Pre-Canon, Psychological Trauma, Side Story, Suspicions, Travel, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-12
Updated: 2010-03-12
Packaged: 2018-02-23 15:20:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2552336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sasuke is suspicious of the man Naruto's sister asked to watch over him and Naruto.  (Part of the "Apartment Manager" AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Testing the Waters

**Author's Note:**

> This is a slight revision of a cut scene from ch. 11 of "The Guardian in Spite of Herself." I like it, but it was dragging out the plot way too long, so I skimmed over Naruto's and Sasuke's introduction to the trade caravan and jumped straight to their arrival in Nagarehiya. But this is what happened the first morning after the boys were discovered.

Merchant caravans were even more boring than academy lectures. Sasuke hadn't thought that was possible, but apparently it was.

Naruto's older sister, Yukiko, woke them at sunrise and deftly palmed the kunai out of Sasuke's hand. Then she fed them bread and dried fish for breakfast, turned them over to Tsukene Seichi, a tall, arrogant man with rust-colored hair, and told him to teach them about civilian towns and cities.

"Why must you torment me like this, Yuki-chan?" Seichi asked, grabbing her hand.

"Because I think looking after the kids will do you some good, Seichi, and because they need to know the differences between hidden villages and the rest of the world," Naruto's sister said. "Let go."

"Heartless and practical as always," Seichi said, and managed to give her hand a fleeting kiss before she yanked herself free and stalked away. Seichi sighed theatrically, then turned to Sasuke and Naruto. "You're a bit young to walk beside the wagons all day long, and I'm not interested in playing hide and seek if you try to run off, so we're going to borrow Yoshitaka-san's wagon for the morning."

"Who's Yoshitaka-san?" Naruto asked, following Seichi through the camp. Sasuke trailed them both, wincing every time Naruto stepped on a twig or a patch of dead leaves. The moron would never be any use as a ninja at this rate.

Oddly, Seichi avoided all the little obstacles Naruto bulled through.

"Yoshitaka-san is the old man who wanted to let you drink sake last night," Seichi said dryly. "You have a remarkably short memory... Yujiro-kun, was it?"

Naruto nodded, bouncing on his toes as he followed the rust-haired man. "Yeah, Ayakawa Yujiro, that's me! And I didn't forget the old man -- he's cool, and his beard's all funny and twisty -- I just didn't remember his name. So, so, what does he trade? Yukiko-neechan sells curtains and stuff for spazzy Yuichiro, and she buys all kinds of weird junk for old man Yutaro, so what does Yoshitaka-san trade?"

Seichi pressed the back of his hand against his forehead as if he had a headache. Sasuke almost sympathized.

"Yoshitaka-san sells medicines and medical supplies, everything from scalpels and gloves and basic nutrition pills to crazy electronic thingamajigs that mimic what medic-nin can do with ninpou. Now shut up for a minute, brats. Yuki-chan may not have let you drink any sake, but she showed no such consideration toward me, and I require a little peace and quiet for my sins."

Naruto blinked, scowled, and started to open his mouth.

"He means he has a hangover," Sasuke said before Naruto could start yelling. He'd seen enough drunks cooling off in the holding cells to recognize the symptoms. His faint empathy for Seichi burned away; drunks were nothing but weak idiots. Seichi deserved all the trouble Naruto would give him.

"Oh. That's dumb. Hey, hey, why didn't he just say that instead of talking around in circles? It's stupid not to say what you mean -- it's hard enough to make people listen to you when you're not _trying_ to confuse them." Naruto folded his arms and glared at Seichi's back.

Seichi's fingers twitched toward his thigh -- Sasuke blinked, and studied the man with new interest -- but he pretended not to have heard. A quick flurry of conversation moved Yoshitaka-san and his son out of the drivers' bench of their wagon, leaving Seichi in possession of the reins, Naruto on the other end of the seat, and Sasuke sandwiched between them. Seichi looked bemusedly at the mules he was now theoretically guiding, and then wound the reins around the post at the front of the seat.

"So," he said. "You're Ayakawa Yujiro-kun and... you know, I don't believe I caught your family name, Sakama-kun."

"You're a ninja," Sasuke said. That twitch of the man's fingers, not aimless or curving into claws, but directed toward a missing kunai holster, was the only real sign -- and even that could have been an accident -- but Sasuke was sure. The man was traveling with Naruto's sister, who was a ninja and probably wouldn't put up with him except for a mission. And he didn't walk anything like a civilian.

Seichi didn't miss a beat, just grinned as if Sasuke had made a joke. "I wish you were right, Sakama-kun; if I were a ninja, I bet I'd know a trick to fix my headache. The only shinobi in this caravan is Kurenai-san, our guard. I'm just a drifter with a knack for cards. Now, Yuki-chan tells me that you and her brother haven't been out of Konoha before, so she wants me to explain a little about the outside world. Are you going to listen, or are you going to make trouble?"

It was a perfect mask, except for the eyes. For just a second, as Seichi tilted his head into the shadow of a nearby tree, his eyes looked cold and flat and dead, like Itachi's eyes had been that night -- nothing behind them but decision and will. Sasuke shivered, and then Seichi stretched and yawned and was only a slightly hung-over drifter trying to put a good face on babysitting his would-be girlfriend's little brother and friend. Harmless. Simple.

"I'll listen, but only if you're not boring," Naruto said. "That's fair, right?"

Sasuke held Seichi's eyes for several more seconds, to prove that he was only backing off because they had to keep cover, not because he was scared. Then he nodded. "I'll listen."

"Weird kids, both of you. Of course, you grew up around ninja, so what else should I expect?" Seichi muttered, as if he weren't a ninja himself.

Or was he? Maybe Seichi walked quietly because he was used to avoiding bandits. Maybe he carried a knife; a lot of drifters did. Maybe Naruto's sister put up with him because she owed him or his clan a favor. Maybe the deadness in his eyes had only been a trick of the light and Sasuke's too-fresh memories of Ita-- of that night.

Seichi clapped his hands and then winced, subtly, as if the noise hurt. "Okay. Differences between ninja villages and the rest of the world. Lesson one: I'd bet good money you brats know a ninja or two, but outside of hidden villages, ninja are very rare. I didn't meet any until I was twice your age, and even after living in Konoha for a while, they still give me the creeps. So don't laugh at people who get impressed by genin and tell really stupid stories about ninpou that you know can't be true. Just because you know better doesn't mean they'll believe you, and since you'll be in their villages, they'll have friends around; ten against one makes for a very lopsided, unpleasant fight, especially if you're all drunk. I tell you that from experience." Seichi touched the bridge of his nose with a reminiscent grin.

"You get into bar fights?" Naruto asked, sounding torn between admiration and disgust. "Yukiko-neechan doesn't like that _at all_."

"Yeah? Well damn, there goes another hobby," Seichi said, snapping his fingers. Up ahead, the first wagon in the caravan began to move, and Seichi turned his attention to the mules, slapping their necks lightly with the reins and whistling them forward.

He didn't handle the reins like a ninja, didn't have the delicate precision of aim. And he winced again as the wagon swayed forward, pressing one hand to his temple and closing his eyes for a second.

"Watch the road," Sasuke said.

"That's your job, brats. I'm relying on you two to tell me if we start drifting sideways," Seichi said, but he opened his eyes. "Anyway, remember not to talk about ninja, and if you have to talk about them, pretend they're evil magicians or something. Lesson two: the daimyo are important. Yes, really, and if you offend one of them..."

As Seichi lounged back on the driver's bench and droned on, Sasuke kicked Naruto in a futile attempt to stop his fidgets, and wondered if he'd been jumping at shadows.


End file.
